One Last Curse On The Fisherman's Lips
by Corcoran
Summary: Part of my 'Holy Tree' series. How to deal with unpleasant ghosts.


Title: One Last Curse On The Fisherman's Lips  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Spoilers/Warnings: some metaphysical violence!  
  
Summary:How to deal with a malicious ghost! This story was inspired by Sting's The Soul Cages. You can find the lyrics here:  
  
http://www.musicsonglyrics.com/S/Sting/Sting%20-%20The%20Soul%20Cages%20lyrics.htm  
  
lj-cut  
  
One Last Curse On The Fisherman's Lips  
  
By  
  
Corcoran  
  
One less soul in the soul cages  
  
One more curse on the Fisherman's lips  
  
Sting  
  
Jack woke and sat up in the same movement. He could feel Hrriss' large furry body beside him. His fetch was growling deep in his throat. Something was seriously wrong and it took Jack some moments to realise what it was. The Merlin was upset. Very upset. In fact she was weeping.  
  
*What in Hell? * He expostulated, wordlessly.  
  
*Sun-in-Rain, * Hrriss hissed softly, his mental voice like warm, dark velvet. *I believe we have an intruder. *  
  
Jack reached out to comfort the Merlin and then did a mental check on his men. Everyone present, but Archie was in some kind of trouble. Haunting-type trouble.   
  
He felt white-hot anger. How dare it? That boy was under his protection. What right did a malignant spirit have to invade his territory and trouble his apprentice? Obviously it had no idea who it was dealing with but it was about to find out!  
  
He didn't bother to dress but threw his robe on and, with Hrriss at his heels, stalked out of his cabin, crossed the Officer's wardroom and knocked at Pellew's door. Pellew's initial response was sleepy but he soon appeared, dishevelled but alert.  
  
"What is the matter, Jack?"  
  
"We have a malign ghost. It seems to be troubling Archie. I thought I might need your help to look after him while I trounce the interloper. I'll tear the damn thing to bits. Nothing and nobody does that to one of my kittens and gets away with it! " His jaw was set and his face white with anger. His eyes blazed with cold, hard fire. He looked even more feline than usual. Pellew, although concerned for the young Lieutenant, wondered how Messers Hornblower and Kennedy would react if they ever found out that their Captain and teacher had referred to them as kittens. He smiled but then sobered as he became aware that Jack's anger was so powerful that it felt like a separate presence. He jumped slightly as Hrriss' soft grey fur brushed against his hand. Jack was on the warpath or Hrriss would not be in his leopard form. Pellew looked across at his friend. Jack's long, loose, blonde hair seemed to glow as he created a small light to show them their path. He was dressed in some long, silk robe with huge square sleeves. Exotic. Beautiful. He looked like the magical creature he was. Fair skin set in the lineaments of boiling anger. Pellew could hear the whisper of their bare feet as they slipped down the companionway.   
  
The Lieutenant's cabin was third on the left. Jack knocked. A sound of scrambling behind the door.  
  
"Captain?" Hornblower's voice, tense, worried.  
  
"Yes, Captain Pellew is with me."  
  
"Oh, thank God!"  
  
Jack pushed the door open. Hornblower was kneeling on the floor; Kennedy convulsed as his friend tried to hold him. Strange, guttural sounds replaced the young man's usual quiet, pleasant tones. Hornblower's eyes caught the werelight and glowed deep red. His distress was obvious.  
  
Jack stepped forward and touched the lad's shoulder reassuringly, as he scanned the room for the entity responsible for this situation.  
  
It was leaning back against the bulkhead, ankles crossed, arms crossed over chest. Insolent, nonchalant, believing itself to be in control. Jack looked straight at it.   
  
"Who are you and why are you here?" his voice was icy. "Talk, or I may become bored and destroy you."  
  
"You can see me, can you? An' me tryin' so hard to stay out o' the light." The apparition tore at a fingernail with its teeth.  
  
"Well it did not work. What the hell are you doing here? These are my apprentices and under my protection." The words were clipped, cold and full of authority.  
  
"They may be under your protection, pretty boy, but that will not stop me visiting an old friend. Archie and I go back a long way."  
  
Trust a shallow, stupid creature to notice only externals. If the spirit had bothered to look, really look, he would have seen. As it was all he saw was a potential victim. Jack smiled, ruthless and dangerous.   
  
"I take it you are Jack Simpson. I also suspect from his reaction to your presence that Lieutenant Kennedy is somewhat less than ecstatic at seeing you again." The shaman hissed.  
  
He glanced towards the two lads. Archie had stopped convulsing and lay limp and exhausted against his friend's shoulder. Hornblower's head was bowed as he whispered in Kennedy's ear. Kennedy looked up at his friend and smiled.   
  
Simpson saw Pellew half a step behind Jack and grinned unpleasantly.  
  
"I see you've got Pellew with you. I'll start on him when those two whining brats are safe at Bedlam!"  
  
Jack laughed, the anger draining away and a wicked sense of irony taking its place.  
  
"You will be driving no one anywhere. You cannot touch any of them. You really are astonishingly stupid, you know. You look at Lieutenant Kennedy and see only a young boy whom you victimised. The rest of us see someone quite different. The really amusing thing is that in a perverted sort of way you were instrumental in making him what he is now."  
  
He stepped closer until he was only a foot or so away from the apparition. What to do with the creature? He had obviously come here with the intent of harming Archie, Horatio and Pellew. Hell would freeze over before that would happen. Maybe savaging him and sending him screaming back to wherever he came from would be enough. Like all bullies Simpson was a coward at heart and if Jack roared at him he may well scarper. But that would be too easy an escape.  
  
"I, however, am not as young as I look and you don't intimidate me one bit with your venom. Or your threats." Jack was right in Simpson's face now and he cloaked his aura while he tried to decide what to do. Simpson started to look uncomfortable, for he was as poor an excuse for a ghost as he had been for a man. Contact with this evil creature made Jack feel filthy. He could feel Simpson's desire to hurt and humiliate anyone who came within his grasp. He shuddered at the sadistic nature of the creature. He now understood quite clearly what Simpson must have done to Archie and possibly Horatio as well and he wanted him to pay in full.   
  
Simpson pulled himself together and essayed a lascivious leer. "You want some too, do you? You pretty, hoity-toity types are all alike. You get tired of your own kind and come looking for a bit of rough." He looked Jack up and down, mentally undressing him. Jack heard Pellew gasp at the insult to his friend, a faint moan from Kennedy and total silence from Hornblower as the young man held his breath.  
  
Jack threw Pellew a glance, a feral, feline smile. He saw that his friend was looking after Hornblower and Kennedy, a protective arm around each. Hrriss had padded over and crouched between Simpson and his friends. His long silver-grey tail lashed, his ears laid back against his scull and his fangs bared.   
  
Everything was well in hand, so Jack turned his attention back to Simpson. He licked his lips as he caught and held Simpson's gaze with his own.  
  
"Ah," Simpson was smug. " I see I spoke the truth, eh, 'Sir'." He spat the honorific, turning it into an insult.  
  
"Yes," Jack replied. "but I suggest that you should be prepared to hear the truth when you ask for it. It may not be what you expect."   
  
*Gentlemen, what would you like me to do with this vermin? Do I frighten him and send him back where he came from? Do I destroy him or bind him? Archie, you suffered most at his hands. Have you a preference or shall I just eat him? *   
  
Archie replied. *I loathe him for what he did to me but I don't feel that we have the right to completely destroy him. Can you punish him and send him back to whatever hell he came from? * It was then that Jack realised that whatever the circumstances Archie would have compassion even for this putrid object.  
  
*Very well, Archie, I won't eat him but I will hurt him. *  
  
He stepped closer to the apparition as his lips curled back from razor sharp feline teeth. Simpson didn't realise how deluded he was until those teeth buried themselves in his shoulder. He screamed and tried to pull away but was held fast. The nails on Jack's long, elegant fingers became claws and he sheathed all ten of them in Simpson's chest. He shook his head, like a lion tearing the flesh of its prey. The Hargreaves' long, loose hair shook like a mane and glittered in the werelight. Simpson sobbed with pain, shock and fear. Jack allowed him to pull away slightly but bitten 'flesh' was still held by those terrible teeth. Jack swallowed it, absorbing the energy into his own, augmenting his power. He smiled at Simpson, showing his fangs. Another bite and the creature would run howling back to whatever dismal corner of Hades he inhabited. He shifted his claws, flexing his fingers. Simpson screamed again. Jack could feel Simpson's substance running freely over his hands, arms and chin and being absorbed through his skin. He started to glow with his own light as he uncloaked his aura.  
  
"You have made a terrible mistake." he hissed. "You've threatened my apprentices and my friend. I do not take such threats lightly. Be quite sure that I can destroy you utterly, bite by bite. Give me a good reason why I should not."  
  
Simpson babbled, fear and pain making him incoherent. "P-p-p-lease let me go. I didn't mean any harm. Just a bit of fun, that's all."   
  
"Not good enough." His voice seemed to sizzle as he pulled Simpson back for another bite. "I really think you need to understand how it feels to be soul-destroyed, as you did to Archie." The teeth sliced into Simpson again and the claws raked down his chest. The second bite was duly swallowed as Simpson wept hysterically. Jack extended a long feline tongue and lapped at the 'blood' that ran from the wounds.  
  
"What a pity you cannot pass out. It's excruciating is it not? And you do not even have Death to save you." Jack leaned in as if for another bite but stopped and hissed in Simpson's ear.  
  
"If you leave now and never return I will spare you. If you break your word I swear that everything you have just felt will seem like a children's game compared with my retribution. Do you understand me?"  
  
"Y-y-yes, Sir."  
  
"Now apologise to Archie and thank him. It was his intercession that saved you. I would certainly have eaten you left to my own devices. On your knees, you evil little monster!" Jack shoved him towards Archie and forced him to his knees.  
  
Archie watched calmly, his face pale and his exhaustion showing in his eyes. He regarded Simpson dispassionately.  
  
"You really are a disgusting object, are you not? A coward and a bully. I am not afraid of you now and I never will be again. Strange, is it not? I would not be what I am now: a wizard, a healer, if I had never been your thrall. So perhaps, in some bizarre way, I am in your debt. The gift you gave me without meaning to has become one of the most important things in my life. Maybe I should thank you, but I am not that selfless." He relaxed against Horatio's shoulder.  
  
Simpson drew his lips back from his teeth. "You are deluding yourself. You will never amount to anything," Simpson spat at Archie, who gazed back at him with a tranquil, unwavering gaze. "You're so full of yourself. And him." He snarled at Horatio. " Did he take my place Archie? Have you swapped one master for another? Are you his thrall now?" Simpson leered.   
  
To everyone's surprise Archie laughed. "You are really scraping the barrel now! Accept my congratulations, for that was a truly vile remark. It must have taken you weeks to think of it! But it doesn't make an iota of difference. You cannot touch me. Leave!" The young healer rose gracefully to his feet, stepped past Hrriss and into Simpson's face. "Get out!" His voice was low, threatening and his eyes burned. He lifted his hands and they morphed into the talons of a bird of prey. He slashed them at Simpson's face. Simpson howled and dropped to his knees. "Get out!" roared Archie amid the sound of beating wings. Simpson vanished.  
  
Horatio gave a strange half sob and spun Archie around, embracing him enthusiastically. "I'm so proud of you, Archie. You did it!"  
  
"I did, didn't I?" Archie seemed slightly dazed but he didn't pull away. His wings fluttered and his eyes were wide and staring. It took Horatio a moment to realise that the golden feathers in his hands were real and that the eyes gazing back at him were still deep blue but they were not human. Archie blinked.  
  
"Windhover." He breathed. "My name is Windhover." The huge wings opened until they almost filled the tiny cabin and then shivered, shimmering in Jack's werelight. The wings settled to the floor and Horatio ran gentle hands along them. They were warm and soft under his fingers and they rustled as he touched them.  
  
Jack smiled. "You have just passed your examination, Archie. You are now a fully fledged wizard. I am very proud of you, lad!" He knew that he and Pellew needed to leave as soon as possible. Archie and Horatio needed an opportunity to talk unobserved. "The wings will disappear just by willing them to and your eyes will change back the same way. Come and speak to me when you have rested. You have expended a great deal of energy over the last few minutes and you need to sleep." He touched Pellew's arm and gave him a significant glance.  
  
"Goodnight, gentlemen. Get some sleep. I'll excuse you both from your watches tomorrow. God knows, you've earned some rest and some time to yourselves." Pellew smiled with great affection at both his lieutenants then turned to Jack. "They are not the only ones who need to sleep, Jack. You look exhausted, too."   
  
Jack nodded. "Very well, we shall speak more of this in the morning." They closed the door quietly and Jack smiled at his companion. "Well, that was unexpected. Simpson will not try that again in the near future."  
  
"He will try again, though?" Pellew inquired.  
  
"The creature is malevolent and determined to destroy all of us. Particularly Archie. He will keep trying until someone eats him." Jack shrugged. "Sooner or later Archie will get fed up of him and that will be that."  
  
"I hope it's sooner, rather than later..." Pellew sighed. "That was most unpleasant." Jack frowned.  
  
"Come in and have a drink with me? I do not know about you but I need one and drinking alone is such a dismal pastime!"  
  
Fin  
  
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! 


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